John Curtice: By-election results leave Tories with mountain to climb
This was another disappointing election night for the Conservatives, with two by-election defeats and two gains for Labour.
Not only did they lose Kingswood, where Labour needed a relatively modest 11-point swing. They also lost Wellingborough, where an 18-point swing was required for the seat to change hands.
In the event, the swing in Kingswood was 16.4%. But that was overshadowed by the result in Wellingborough where the swing was 28.5% - the second highest swing from Conservative to Labour in any post-war by-election.
Big though these swings were, they were not a major surprise. In the second half of last year, the Conservatives lost three seats to Labour thanks in each case to swings of more than 20%.
(More at link):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68305798
= new reply since forum marked as read
and it's still hilarious to see Truss plummet to -80% approval. PopCons!
Rishi Sunak faces another likely byelection defeat. The Commons independent expert panel, which deals with appeals from MPs accused of misconduct, has rejected an appeal from Scott Benton against a standards committee recommendation saying he should be suspended from the Commons for 35 days for offering to lobby on behalf of the gambling industry.
The 35-day suspension will have to be approved by the Commons as a whole, but that will be a formality. And once that has been agreed, because the suspension is longer than 10 days, the Recall Act kicks in, which means that if 10% of voters in the constituency sign a petition calling for a byelection, there will be one. In all recent cases, that 10% threshold has been achieved comfortably.
Benton is MP for Blackpool South and he had a majority for the Conservatives of 3,690 at the last election over Labour. Given the current state of polling, this looks like an inevitable Labour win.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/20/post-office-horizon-scandal-conservatives-kemi-badenoch-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live?page=with:block-65d487418f089ef9a4ddd1b4#block-65d487418f089ef9a4ddd1b4